Application-based point of sale system in mobile operating systems

ABSTRACT

Application-based point of sale systems in mobile operating systems. A first application may generate a first URL directed to a second application, a parameter of the first URL comprising an identifier of the first application. A mobile operating system (OS) may access the first URL to open the second application. The second application may receive, from a server, a virtual account number (VAN). The second application may initiate a server on a port and generate a second URL directed to the first application, a parameter of the second URL comprising the port. The OS may access the second URL to open the first application. The first application may establish a connection with the server using the specified port and receive the VAN from the second application via the connection. The first application may autofill the VAN to a form field of a payment form in the first application.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/876,473, entitled “APPLICATION-BASED POINT OF SALE SYSTEM IN MOBILEOPERATING SYSTEMS” filed on May 18, 2020. The contents of theaforementioned application are incorporated herein by reference in theirentirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments herein generally relate to computing platforms, and morespecifically, to providing an application-based point-of-sale system ina mobile operating system.

BACKGROUND

Some mobile operating systems place restrictions on communicationsbetween two or more applications executing on the same device. Forexample, some mobile operating systems may prevent a first applicationfrom directly communicating with a second application. Similarly, somemobile operating systems may restrict the exchange of data between suchapplications. Doing so may unnecessarily restrict legitimate and securecommunication between applications.

SUMMARY

Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems, methods, articles ofmanufacture, and computer-readable media for communications betweenapplications in a mobile operating system. In one example, a firstapplication may generate a first URL directed to a second application, aparameter of the first URL comprising an identifier of the firstapplication. A mobile operating system (OS) may access the first URL toopen the second application. The second application may receive, from aserver, a virtual account number (VAN). The second application mayinitiate a server on a port and generate a second URL directed to thefirst application, a parameter of the second URL comprising the port.The OS may access the second URL to open the first application. Thefirst application may establish a connection with the server using thespecified port and receive the VAN from the second application via theconnection. The first application may autofill the VAN to a form fieldof a payment form in the first application.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1A-1F illustrate embodiments of a system for an application-basedpoint-of-sale system in a mobile operating system.

FIGS. 2A-2D illustrate embodiments of a system for an application-basedpoint-of-sale system in a mobile operating system.

FIGS. 3A-3C illustrate embodiments of an application-based point-of-salesystem in a mobile operating system.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a first logic flow.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a second logic flow

FIGS. 6A-6B illustrate an example contactless card.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a computing system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments disclosed herein provide techniques for an application-basedpoint of sale system accessible by other applications in a mobileoperating system (OS) that restricts communications between applicationsregistered to different developers. Generally, a first applicationexecuting on a device may benefit from data that may be provided by asecond application on the device. For example, the first application maybe a merchant application registered with the merchant in the OS, andthe second application may be an application provided by a financialinstitution that is registered with the financial institution in the OS.In such an example, a user of the merchant application may request touse data from the financial institution application, e.g., paymentinformation, biographical information, etc., in the merchantapplication. Responsive to the request, the merchant application maygenerate a first uniform resource locator (URL) that is directed to thefinancial institution application. A parameter of the first URL mayinclude an identifier of the merchant application.

The merchant application may then instruct the mobile OS to open orotherwise access the first URL. Doing so causes the mobile OS to openthe financial institution application on the device. The financialinstitution application may then initiate a local server in the OS thatis only accessible to applications executing on the mobile device. Thelocal server may be initiated on a port and may be a transmissioncontrol protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) server or any other type ofserver (e.g., a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) server). In someembodiments, the financial institution application may receiveauthentication credentials for an account with the financial institutionprior to initiating the server. For example, if the user has notprovided login credentials within a threshold amount of time, e.g., 30days, the financial institution application may require the user toprovide login credentials. Additionally and/or alternatively, prior toinitiating the server, the financial institution application may receiveencrypted data from a contactless card associated with the account andtransmit the encrypted data to an authentication server. Theauthentication server may attempt to decrypt the encrypted data. If theserver decrypts the encrypted data, the server may transmit anindication to the financial institution application that the encrypteddata was verified. Furthermore, if the server decrypts the encrypteddata, the server may generate a virtual account number (VAN) for theaccount. The server may provide the generated VAN, an expiration datefor the VAN, and card verification value (CVV) for the VAN to thefinancial institution application. Further still, the server may provideother data to the financial institution application, such as a firstname, last name, phone number, email address, billing address, and/orshipping address.

The financial institution application may generate a second URL that isdirected to the merchant application. The second URL may be based atleast in part on the identifier of the merchant application specified asa parameter of the first URL. The second URL may further specify theport of the local server as a parameter. The financial institutionapplication may further register the local server and/or the financialinstitution application as a background task with the OS, such that thelocal server and/or the financial institution application continues toexecute in the background of the OS as other applications execute in theforeground of the OS (e.g., the merchant application). The financialinstitution application may instruct the mobile OS to open or otherwiseaccess the second URL. Doing so causes the OS to open the merchantapplication in the foreground of the OS.

Once opened, the merchant application may identify the port of the localserver specified in the second URL and establish a connection with thelocal server at the specified port on a local interface (e.g., a localloopback IP address). In some embodiments, the merchant application mayprovide a certificate that may be validated by the server as part ofestablishing the connection. Additionally and/or alternatively, themerchant application may provide a token that may be verified by theserver as part of establishing the connection. Once a connection isestablished, the financial institution application may exchange datawith the merchant application over the connection, and vice versa. Forexample, the financial institution application may provide the VAN,expiration date, and CVV and/or other information (e.g., addressinformation, etc.) to the merchant application using the connection. Insuch an example, the merchant application may autofill the received datainto a form, thereby allowing the user to complete a purchase or otheroperation using the received data. More generally any number and type ofdata may be exchanged via the connection.

Advantageously, the mobile OS may restrict access to the local server byexternal entities. Doing so improves the security of the device and anydata. Furthermore, by securely receiving payment data from the financialinstitution application, the security of the payment data is enhanced.For example, a user need not manually enter the VAN, expiration date,and/or CVV, which could compromise the security of the data.Furthermore, in some embodiments, the financial institution may providea framework (e.g., a software development kit (SDK)) that includes therequired functionality to perform the operations disclosed herein. Doingso allows only the required functionality to be integrated into thirdparty applications (e.g., the merchant application) without requiring afull SDK and/or framework that would otherwise be required to performthe operations disclosed herein. For example, by providing one or moreAPIs to the merchant application that can be used to exchange data, theSDK allows the merchant application to be of a reduced size relative toincluding the full code base of the financial institution application inthe merchant application to provide the required functionality in themerchant application.

With general reference to notations and nomenclature used herein, one ormore portions of the detailed description which follows may be presentedin terms of program procedures executed on a computer or network ofcomputers. These procedural descriptions and representations are used bythose skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substances oftheir work to others skilled in the art. A procedure is here, andgenerally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operationsleading to a desired result. These operations are those requiringphysical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though notnecessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic, oroptical signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined,compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient at times,principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals asbits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or thelike. It should be noted, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to those quantities.

Further, these manipulations are often referred to in terms, such asadding or comparing, which are commonly associated with mentaloperations performed by a human operator. However, no such capability ofa human operator is necessary, or desirable in most cases, in any of theoperations described herein that form part of one or more embodiments.Rather, these operations are machine operations. Useful machines forperforming operations of various embodiments include digital computersas selectively activated or configured by a computer program storedwithin that is written in accordance with the teachings herein, and/orinclude apparatus specially constructed for the required purpose or adigital computer. Various embodiments also relate to apparatus orsystems for performing these operations. These apparatuses may bespecially constructed for the required purpose. The required structurefor a variety of these machines will be apparent from the descriptiongiven.

Reference is now made to the drawings, wherein like reference numeralsare used to refer to like elements throughout. In the followingdescription, for the purpose of explanation, numerous specific detailsare set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding thereof. Itmay be evident, however, that the novel embodiments can be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, well-knownstructures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order tofacilitate a description thereof. The intention is to cover allmodification, equivalents, and alternatives within the scope of theclaims.

FIG. 1A depicts a schematic of an exemplary system 100, consistent withdisclosed embodiments. As shown, the system 100 includes one or moremobile computing devices 110. The mobile devices 110 are representativeof any type of network-enabled computing devices that execute mobileoperating systems, such as smartphones, tablet computers, wearabledevices, laptops, portable gaming devices, and the like. The mobiledevice 110 may include a processor 101 and a memory 111. The processor101 may be any computer processor, including without limitation an AMD®Athlon®, Duron® and Opteron® processors; ARM® application, embedded andsecure processors; IBM® and Motorola® DragonBall® and PowerPC®processors; IBM and Sony® Cell processors; Intel® Celeron®, Core®, Core(2) Duo®, Itanium®, Pentium®, Xeon®, and XScale® processors; and similarprocessors. Dual microprocessors, multi-core processors, and othermulti-processor architectures may also be employed as the processor 101.The memory 111 may include various types of computer-readable storagemedia in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, such asread-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM),Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), static RAM(SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory (e.g., oneor more flash arrays), polymer memory such as ferroelectric polymermemory, ovonic memory, phase change or ferroelectric memory,silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) memory, magnetic or opticalcards, an array of devices such as Redundant Array of Independent Disks(RAID) drives, solid state memory devices (e.g., USB memory, solid statedrives (SSD) and any other type of storage media suitable for storinginformation.

As show, the memory 111 of the mobile device 110 includes an instance ofa mobile operating system (OS) 112. Example mobile operating systems 112include the Android® and iOS® mobile operating systems. As shown, the OS112 includes an account application 113 and one or more otherapplications 114. The account application 113 allows users to performvarious account-related operations, such as activating payment cards,viewing account balances, purchasing items, processing payments, and thelike. In some embodiments, a user may authenticate using authenticationcredentials to access certain features of the account application 113.For example, the authentication credentials may include a username (orlogin) and password, biometric credentials (e.g., fingerprints, Face ID,etc.), and the like. The other applications 114 are representative ofany type of computing application, such as web browsers, merchantapplications, shopping applications, delivery service applications,ride-sharing applications, messaging applications, word processingapplications, social media applications, and the like. For example, afirst one of the other applications 114 may be a merchant applicationprovided by a merchant to purchase goods, services, or any other type ofitem. As another example, a second one of the other applications 114 maybe a ride-sharing application that allows users to arrange and pay fortransportation services. As yet another example, a third one of theother applications 114 may be a delivery service application that allowsusers to purchase food for delivery.

Due to restrictions imposed by the OS 112, applications registered (orassigned) to different developers (or entities) may not be able tocommunicate and/or exchange data. For example, if such restrictions arein place, the account application 113 (registered with a financialinstitution as developer) cannot communicate and/or exchange data withthe other applications 114 (registered with entities other than thefinancial institution). Similarly, a first one of the other applications114 (registered with a first entity) cannot communicate with another oneof the other applications 114 (registered with a second entity differentthan the first entity). The registration of applications may occur whenapplications are submitted to an application store associated with aprovider of the OS 112. Advantageously, however, embodiments disclosedherein provide techniques to securely allow for communication and/ordata exchange between applications registered with different developers(e.g., the account application 113 and any of the other applications114, and/or any two of the other applications 114).

FIG. 1B illustrates an embodiment where an application 114-1 hasreceived a request to communicate with the account application 113. Forexample, the application 114-1 may be an application registered to amerchant. In such an example, the user may select one or more items topurchase via the application 114-1. During the checkout process, theapplication 114-1 may give the user the option to provide payment and/orpersonal information using the account application 113. The user maythen accept the option, thereby instructing the application 114-1 tocommunicate with the account application 113 to receive data. Responsiveto the request, the application 114-1 may generate a URL 125. The URL125 may be directed to the account application 113. The URL 125 mayfurther include a parameter indicating the application 114-1 hasgenerated the URL 125. The URL 125 may be a universal link, or any typeof URL. The parameter may be any identifier suitable to uniquelyidentify the application 114-1, such as a unique identifier, token, orURL string. For example, the URL 125 may be“capitalone://?appid=merchantapp”, where the “capitalone://” portion isdirected to the instance of the account application 113 on the device110, and the “appid=merchantapp” is an identifier of the application114-1 generating the URL 125.

In some embodiments, the application 114-1 uses an applicationprogramming interface (API) of the OS 112 to determine whether the URL125 is valid (e.g., indicates whether the application targeted by theURL 125 is installed on the device 110). For example, the OS 112 mayprovide a “canOpenURL” API that indicates whether a URL provided asinput to the API is valid. Generally, application developers mayregister one or more URLs with the provider of the OS 112 whensubmitting the application to the application store. Doing so mayfacilitate the validations by the API provided by the OS. In such anexample, the application 114-1 may provide the URL 125 (and/or theportion of the URL 125 directed to the account application 113) to theAPI, which indicates whether the account application 113 is installed onthe device and can be opened using the URL 125. Doing so enhancessecurity by ensuring the correct application is installed and bythwarting attempts by third parties that provide an applicationmasquerading as the account application 113. In the latter instance, themasquerading attempt may be thwarted because the third party applicationwould not be registered with the URL being provided as input to the API.In such an example, if the API returns an invalid response, accessingthe URL 125 may cause the OS 112 to launch a web browser directed to awebsite associated with the entity registering the account application113 (e.g., the website of the financial institution and/or anapplication store where the account application 113 may be downloaded).

The application 114-1 and/or the OS 112 may then access, open, orotherwise follow the URL 125, thereby causing the account application113 to open in the foreground of the OS 112. FIG. 1C depicts anembodiment where the account application 113 is opened responsive toaccessing the URL 125. In response, the account application 113 mayoptionally receive authentication credentials for an account. In someembodiments, the account application 113 determines whether the lasttime the user provided authentication credentials exceeds a threshold(e.g., 30 days, 60 days, etc.). For example, if the user has notprovided a login/password in 75 days, and the threshold is 30 days, theaccount application 113 may require that the user provide alogin/password, biometric credentials, etc. In addition and/oralternatively (and as discussed in greater detail with reference toFIGS. 2A-2D), the account application 113 may optionally initiateverification of encrypted data generated by a contactless card prior.

The account application 113 may then initiate a local server 115 toexecute on the mobile device 110. The local server 115 may be any typeof server, such as a TCP/IP server, HTTP server, Hypertext TransferProtocol Secure (HTTPS) server, a streaming server, and the like.However, only local applications (e.g., applications executing on themobile device 110) may access the local server 115. The OS 112 mayrestrict attempts to access the local server 115 from external sources(e.g., via a network). The account application 113 may initiate thelocal server 115 on a specific port number. The account application 113may select the port according to any feasible selection scheme, such asrandomly generating port numbers, using a predetermined port number, andthe like.

FIG. 1D depicts an embodiment where the account application 113generates a URL 126. The URL 126 may be directed to the application114-1 and may include the port number of the local server 115. Forexample, the URL 126 may be “merchantapp://?port=2080”, where the“merchantapp://” portion is directed to the application 114-1 and the“port=2080” portion indicates the local server 115 is open on port 2080.The account application 113 determines the portion of the URL 126directed to the application 114-1 based on the identifier of theapplication 114-1 specified in the URL 125. In some embodiments, similarto the URL 125, the account application 113 makes an API call to the OS112 to determine whether the URL 126 is valid prior to accessing the URL126. More generally, the URL 126 may comprise any parameters sufficientto establish a connection to the local server 115 at the selected port.In some embodiments, the account application 113 may encrypt the portnumber or any additional parameters of the URL 126, e.g., using anencryption key, or a public key. In such embodiments, the application114-1 may decrypt the port number and/or additional parameters, e.g.,using a corresponding decryption key, e.g., a private key. Furthermore,any URL parameters exchanged between any applications may be encryptedto enhance security.

Furthermore, the account application 113 may register the local server115 and/or the account application 113 as a background task with the OS112. Doing so allows the local server 115 and/or the account application113 to continue executing in the background of the OS 112 while otherapplications execute in the foreground of the OS 112. Although the localserver 115 has been initiated, in some embodiments, the accountapplication 113 may initiate the local server 115 after generating theURL 126.

FIG. 1E illustrates an embodiment where the account application 113and/or the OS 112 has opened the URL 126 to open the application 114-1while the local server 115 and/or the account application 113 continueto execute in the background of the OS 112. Responsive to receiving theURL 126, the application 114-1 may identify the port number of the localserver 115 specified as a parameter of the URL 126. As stated, if theURL 126 includes encrypted data, the application 114-1 may decrypt theencrypted port number (or any other relevant parameters) in the URL 126.The application 114-1 may then request to establish a connection withthe local server 115 at the specified port, e.g., on a local loopback IPaddress (e.g., 127.0.0.1 for IPv4, ::1 for IPv6, etc.), the “localhost”hostname, or other predefined local IP address. The connection may beestablished using the protocols supported by the local server 115 (e.g.,TCP/IP connection establishment, etc.). In some embodiments, theapplication 114-1 provides a token and/or digital certificate (orsignature) as part of the connection request to the local server 115-1.The local server 115 may determine whether the token is valid and/orexpected (e.g., the token identifies the application 114-1, which maymatch the token received as a parameter of the URL 125). Similarly, thelocal server 115 may validate the certificate using a public keyassociated with the application 114-1. If the token and/or certificateare validated, the local server 115 may establish the connection withthe application 114-1. Otherwise, the local server 115 may reject theconnection request.

FIG. 1E illustrates an embodiment where a connection between theapplication 114-1 and the local server 115 has been established (and thelocal server 115 continues to execute as a background task in the OS112). As shown, the account application 113 may include data 117. Thedata 117 may be any type of data stored locally on the device 110. Thedata 117 may include remotely stored data that is received by theaccount application 113. For example, the data 117 may include a paymentcard number, expiration date, CVV, address, first name, last name, emailaddress, phone number, or any other attribute of the account with theaccount application 113. Advantageously, the local server 115 mayprovide the data 117 to the application 114-1 while the local server 115executes in the background of the OS 112 and the application 114-1executes in the foreground of the OS 112. In some embodiments, the localserver 115 may encrypt the data 117. In such embodiments, theapplication 114-1 may decrypt the data 117 when received.

FIG. 1F illustrates an embodiment where the application 114-1 hasreceived the data 117 from the local server 115. As stated, in someembodiments, the application 114-1 may decrypt the data 117 ifencrypted. The application 114-1 may identify the data 117 and determinethat the data 117 includes one or more attributes of the user and/or theassociated account. The application 114-1 may then autofill the data 117into one or more form fields, allowing the user to complete the checkoutusing data that has been securely received from the local server 115. Asstated, doing so allows the data 117 to securely be transferred betweenapplications on the same device 110. Furthermore, by requiring only aminimal set of requirements (e.g., APIs, a minimal SDK, etc.), theapplication 114-1 is able to receive any amount of data from the localserver 115. Otherwise, the size of the application 114-1 would be muchlarger to support the disclosed functionality. Further still,embodiments disclosed herein allow the applications 114-1 and 113 toexchange data even though the applications are registered with differentdevelopers.

FIG. 2A depicts a schematic of an exemplary system 200, consistent withdisclosed embodiments. As shown, the system 200 includes one or morecontactless cards 201, one or more of the mobile computing devices 110,and an authentication server 220. The contactless cards 201 arerepresentative of any type of payment cards, such as a credit card,debit card, ATM card, gift card, and the like. The contactless cards 201may comprise one or more communications interfaces 209, such as a radiofrequency identification (RFID) chip, configured to communicate with thecomputing devices 110 via NFC, the EMV standard, or other short-rangeprotocols in wireless communication. Although NFC is used as an examplecommunications protocol, the disclosure is equally applicable to othertypes of communications, such as the EMV standard, Bluetooth, and/orWi-Fi. The authentication server 220 is representative of any type ofcomputing device, such as a server, workstation, compute cluster, cloudcomputing platform, virtualized computing system, and the like.

As shown, a memory 202 of the contactless card includes an applet 203, acounter 204, a private key 205, a diversified key 206, and a uniquecustomer identifier (ID) 207. The applet 203 is executable codeconfigured to perform the operations described herein. The counter 204,private key 205, diversified key 206, and customer ID 207 are used toprovide security in the system 200 as described in greater detail below.

As stated, the contactless cards 201 may be used to enhance the securityof the local server 115 and the mobile device 110. For example, the userof device 110 may desire to use data from the account application 113 inthe application 114-1. Therefore, FIG. 2A depicts an embodiment wherethe account application 114-1 has generated and accessed the URL 125directed to the account application 113. The OS 112 may then open theaccount application 113, which may receive authentication credentialsfor the user's account. The account application 113 may then instructthe user to tap the contactless card 201 to the device 110. Generally,once the contactless card 201 is brought within communications range ofthe communications interface 218 (e.g., a card reader/writer) of thedevice 110, the applet 203 of the contactless card 201 may generateencrypted data as part of the authentication process required toactivate the contactless card 201. To enable NFC data transfer betweenthe contactless card 201 and the mobile device 110, the accountapplication 113 may communicate with the contactless card 201 when thecontactless card 201 is sufficiently close to the communicationsinterface 218 of the mobile device 110. The communications interface 218may be configured to read from and/or communicate with thecommunications interface 209 of the contactless card 201 (e.g., via NFC,Bluetooth, RFID, etc.). Therefore, example communications interfaces 218include NFC communication modules, Bluetooth communication modules,and/or RFID communication modules.

As stated, the system 100 is configured to implement key diversificationto secure data, which may be referred to as a key diversificationtechnique herein. Generally, the server 220 (or another computingdevice) and the contactless card 201 may be provisioned with the sameprivate key 205 (also referred to as a master key, or master symmetrickey). More specifically, each contactless card 201 is programmed with aunique private key 205 that has a corresponding pair in (or managed by)the server 220. For example, when a contactless card 201 ismanufactured, a unique private key 205 may be stored in the memory 202of the contactless card 201. Similarly, the unique private key 205 maybe stored in a record (or profile) of a customer associated with thecontactless card 201 in the account data 224 of the server 220 (and/orstored in a different secure location, such as the hardware securitymodule (HSM) 225). The private key 205 may be kept secret from allparties other than the contactless card 201 and server 220, therebyenhancing security of the system 100. In some embodiments, the applet203 of the contactless card 201 may encrypt and/or decrypt data (e.g.,the customer ID 207) using the private key 205 and the data as input acryptographic algorithm. For example, encrypting the customer ID 207with the private key 205 may result in an encrypted customer ID.Similarly, the authentication server 220 may encrypt and/or decrypt dataassociated with the contactless card 201 using the corresponding privatekey 205.

In some embodiments, the counters 204 and/or private keys 205 of thecontactless card 201 and server 220 may be used in conjunction with thecounters 204 to enhance security using key diversification. The counters204 comprise values that are synchronized between a given contactlesscard 201 and server 220. The counter value 204 may comprise a numberthat changes each time data is exchanged between the contactless card201 and the server 220 (and/or the contactless card 201 and the mobiledevice 110). When preparing to send data (e.g., to the server 220 and/orthe mobile device 110), the applet 203 of the contactless card 201 mayincrement the counter value 204. The contactless card 201 may thenprovide the private key 205 and counter value 204 as input to acryptographic algorithm, which produces a diversified key 206 as output.The cryptographic algorithm may include encryption algorithms,hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) algorithms, cipher-basedmessage authentication code (CMAC) algorithms, and the like.Non-limiting examples of the cryptographic algorithm may include asymmetric encryption algorithm such as 3DES or AES128; a symmetric HMACalgorithm, such as HMAC-SHA-256; and a symmetric CMAC algorithm such asAES-CMAC. Examples of key diversification techniques are described ingreater detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/205,119, filedNov. 29, 2018. The aforementioned patent application is incorporated byreference herein in its entirety.

Continuing with the key diversification example, the contactless card201 may then encrypt the data (e.g., the customer ID 207 and/or anyother data) using the diversified key 206 and the data as input to thecryptographic algorithm. For example, encrypting the customer ID 207with the diversified key 206 may result in an encrypted customer ID 208.Once generated, the applet 203 may transmit the encrypted customer ID208 to the mobile device 110, e.g., via NFC. The account application 113may then transmit the encrypted customer ID 208 to the authenticationserver 220 via the network 230.

The authentication application 223 may then attempt to authenticate theencrypted data. For example, the authentication application 223 mayattempt to decrypt the encrypted customer ID 208 using a copy of theprivate key 205 stored by the server 220. In another example, theauthentication application 223 may provide the private key 205 andcounter value 204 as input to the cryptographic algorithm, whichproduces a diversified key 206 as output. The resulting diversified key206 may correspond to the diversified key 206 of the contactless card201, which may be used to decrypt the encrypted customer ID 208.Therefore, the authentication application 223 may successfully decryptthe encrypted data, thereby verifying the encrypted customer ID 208. Forexample, as stated, a customer ID 207 may be used to generate theencrypted customer ID 208. In such an example, the authenticationapplication 223 may decrypt the encrypted customer ID 208 using theprivate key 205 of the authentication server 220. If the result of thedecryption yields the customer ID 207 associated with the account in theaccount data 224, the authentication application 223 verifies theencrypted customer ID 208. Furthermore, the authentication application223 may instruct the VAN generator 226 to generate a virtual accountnumber, expiration date, and CVV for the account corresponding to thecustomer ID 207. The VAN generator 226 may then store an indication ofthe generated VAN, expiration date, and CVV in a record associated withthe account in the account data 224. A virtual account number is atemporary (e.g., 1-time use) number that may be generated using a randomnumber generator or other randomization function. In some embodiments,the VAN may be linked to the contactless card 201 that was tapped to thedevice 110 to generate the encrypted customer ID 208. In otherembodiments, if the user has authenticated their account using validaccount credentials in the account application 113, the VAN may belinked to a different contactless card 201 associated with theauthenticated account (e.g., where an authenticated account holder hastwo or more cards 201, and taps a first card 201 to the device 110 togenerate a VAN that is linked to a second card 201). Advantageously,using a VAN rather than the actual account number (e.g., the accountnumber printed on the contactless card 201) preserves the security ofthe actual account number.

If the authentication application 223 is unable to decrypt the encryptedcustomer ID 208 to yield the expected result (e.g., the customer ID 207of the account associated with the contactless card 201), theauthentication application 223 does not validate the encrypted customerID 208 and the VAN generator 226 does not generate a VAN. Due to thefailed verification, the authentication application 223 may return anerror to the account application 113, which may refrain from initiatingthe local server 115.

Regardless of the decryption technique used, the authenticationapplication 223 may successfully decrypt the encrypted customer ID 208,thereby verifying the encrypted customer ID 207 (e.g., by comparing theresulting customer ID 208 to a customer ID stored in the account data224, and/or based on an indication that the decryption using the key 205and/or 206 was successful). Although the keys 205, 206 are depicted asbeing stored in the memory 222, the keys 205, 206 may be storedelsewhere, such as in a secure element and/or the HSM 225. In suchembodiments, the secure element and/or the HSM 225 may decrypt theencrypted customer ID 207 using the keys 205 and/or 206 and acryptographic function. Similarly, the secure element and/or HSM 225 maygenerate the diversified key 206 based on the private key 205 andcounter value 204 as described above. Although depicted as being hostedon the same system, the authentication application 223 and the VANgenerator 226 may be hosted on different systems. In some embodiment, anorchestration layer (OL) may arrange for the verification of theencrypted data by the authentication application 223 and/or thegeneration of the VAN by the VAN generator 226.

FIG. 2B depicts an embodiment where authentication application 223verifies the encrypted customer ID 208. As shown, the authenticationapplication 223 may return an indication of verification 210 to theaccount application 113. Similarly, the VAN generator 226 may transmit aVAN 227 (which includes an expiration date and CVV) to the accountapplication 113. In some embodiments, the VAN 227 is transmitted withthe verification 210. In other embodiments, the VAN 227 is transmittedseparately from the verification 210. Based on the verification 210and/or receipt of the VAN 227, the account application 113 may determineto initiate the local server 115. In some embodiments, the VAN 227 isgenerated and/or transmitted after the local server 115 is initiated.Furthermore, the account application 113 may receive other data from theserver 220, such as first name, last name, phone number, email address,billing address, and/or shipping address associated with the account inthe account data 224.

FIG. 2C depicts an embodiment where the account application 113 hasinitiated the local server 115 on the device 110. As shown, the localserver 115 includes the VAN 227. The account application 113 may thengenerate a URL including a port number of the local server 115, wherethe URL is directed to the requesting application 114-1. The URL willthen open the requesting application 114-1, which allows the application114-1 to establish a connection with the local server 115 executing inthe background of the OS 112.

FIG. 2D illustrates an embodiment where the other application 114-1 hasestablished a connection with the local server 115. As shown, localserver 115 may provide the VAN 227 (including an expiration date andCVV) to the other application 114-1. The other application 114-1 maythen autofill the VAN 227 into a form presented in the other application114-1, such as a payment form. As stated, the local server 115 mayfurther provide other account-related details, such as a billing addressassociated with the VAN 227, a billing address of the account in theaccount data 224, a shipping address from the account data 224, theaccount holder's name, etc. Doing so allows the other application 114-1to autofill the relevant data into one or more form fields to automateat least a portion of the checkout process (or other processes orworkflows in the other application 114-1). More generally, the accountapplication 113, including the local server 115, provides anapplication-based point-of-sale system that is accessible to otherapplications in the mobile operating system 112 even though theseapplications may be registered to different entities in the OS 112.

FIG. 3A is a schematic 300 depicting an example embodiment of enablingcommunication between applications in a mobile operating system. Asshown, FIG. 3A includes a mobile device 110 executing an exampleapplication 114. For example, the application 114 may be an applicationthat allows a user to place an order and provide payment information orthe order. As shown, the graphical user interface (GUI) of theapplication 114 includes a payment form having fields 301-305, wherefield 301 a name field, field 302 is an account number field, field 303is an expiration date field, field 304 is a CVV field, and field 305 isan address field. As shown, the application 114 may output anotification 309 specifying to select the notification 309 to completethe checkout using a virtual account number from a banking application,e.g., the account application 113.

FIG. 3B is a schematic 310 illustrating an embodiment where the user hasselected the notification 309. Doing so may cause the application 114 togenerate a URL 125 to the account application 113, where the URL 125includes an identifier of the application 114 as a parameter. Onceopened, the URL 125 causes the account application 113 to be opened inthe foreground of the OS 112. As shown in FIG. 3B, the accountapplication 113 may instruct the user to provide authenticationcredentials (not depicted) and output a notification 306 specifying totap the contactless card 201 to the mobile device 110 to proceed withthe authentication. Once the contactless card 201 is tapped to themobile device 110, the account application 113 transmits, via thecommunications interface 218, an indication to the contactless card 201to generate encrypted data as described above (e.g., the encryptedcustomer ID 208), and transmit the encrypted data to the accountapplication 113. Once received, the account application 113 may thentransmit the encrypted data to the server 220, where the authenticationapplication 223 verifies the encrypted data using key diversification asdescribed above. The authentication application 223 may then transmit anindication of the verification to the account application 113.Furthermore, if the encrypted data is verified, the authenticationapplication 223 may instruct the VAN generator 226 to generate a VAN,expiration date for the VAN, and an account number for the VAN. The VANgenerator 226 may then transmit the VAN, expiration date, and CVV to theaccount application 113. Furthermore, the server 220 may transmitadditional data to the account application 113, such as account holdername, billing address, shipping address, phone number, email address,etc.

Once the account application 113 receives the indication specifying thatthe server 220 verified the encrypted data, the account application 113may initiate the local server 115 on the device 110. The accountapplication 113 may then generate a URL 126 directed to the requestingapplication 114, where a parameter of the URL 126 includes the portnumber of the local server 115. The application 114 may then connect tothe local server 115 as described above, and request the relevant data,e.g., names, addresses, VAN, expiration date, and CVV.

FIG. 3C is a schematic 320 depicting an embodiment where the application114 has received the requested data from the local server 115. Theapplication 114 may include an SDK or APIs that allow the application114 to request and/or receive data as well as parse any received data.As shown, the application 114 may autofill the user's name to the namefield 301, the virtual account number to the account number field 302,the expiration date to the expiration date field 303, the CVV to the CVVfield 304, and the address to the address field 305. The user may thencomplete the purchase using the button 311. Doing so may complete thepurchase. Furthermore, the data filled in the fields 301-305 may bestored in a user profile associated with the application 114.

Operations for the disclosed embodiments may be further described withreference to the following figures. Some of the figures may include alogic flow. Although such figures presented herein may include aparticular logic flow, it can be appreciated that the logic flow merelyprovides an example of how the general functionality as described hereincan be implemented. Further, a given logic flow does not necessarilyhave to be executed in the order presented unless otherwise indicated.In addition, the given logic flow may be implemented by a hardwareelement, a software element executed by a processor, or any combinationthereof. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a logic flow 400. The logic flow 400may be representative of some or all of the operations executed by oneor more embodiments described herein. For example, the logic flow 400may include some or all of the operations to provide anapplication-based point-of-sale system in a mobile operating system.Embodiments are not limited in this context.

As shown, the logic flow 400 begins at block 405, where a device 110outputs a first application in the foreground of a mobile OS 112. Forexample, the first application may be the application 114-1, which maybe an application provided by a merchant. At block 410, the firstapplication may receive an indication specifying to receive data from asecond application. The second application may be the accountapplication 113. For example, while attempting to order groceries usingthe merchant application, the user may specify to use a virtual accountnumber from the account application 113 to pay for the groceries. Atblock 415, the first application generates a first URL directed to thesecond application. The first URL may include a unique identifier of thefirst application as a parameter.

At block 420, the OS 112 allows the first URL to be accessed, therebyopening the second application (e.g., the account application 113) inthe foreground of the OS 112. At block 425, the second application mayreceive authentication credentials for an account and/or encrypted datafrom a contactless card 201. For example, the user may provide biometriccredentials and tap their contactless card 201 to the device 110, whichcauses the card 201 to generate and transmit encrypted data. The secondapplication may then transmit the encrypted data to the authenticationserver 220. When the encrypted data is verified, the server 220 maygenerate a VAN, expiration date, and CVV for the account. At block 430,the second application receives the VAN, expiration date, CVV, andverification of the encrypted data from the server 220. At block 435,the second application creates a local server 115 on the mobile device110 at a specified port.

At block 440, the second application generates a second URL. The secondURL may be directed to the first application. A parameter of the secondURL may comprise the port number of the local server 115. At block 445,the second application registers the local server 115 and/or the secondapplication as a background task with the OS 112, thereby allowing thelocal server 115 and/or the second application to execute in thebackground of the OS 112 for some time. In some embodiments, the secondapplication encrypts the parameters of the second URL. At block 450, thesecond URL is accessed to open the first application in the foregroundof the OS 112, while the local server 115 and/or the second applicationcontinue to execute in the background of the OS 112. The firstapplication may decrypt the parameters of the second URL (if encrypted).

At block 455, the first application establishes a connection with thelocal server 115. At block 460, the first application requests andreceives data comprising the VAN, expiration date, and CVV from thelocal server 115. If encrypted, the first application may decrypt thereceived VAN, expiration date, and CVV. At block 465, the firstapplication processes the received data. For example, the application114 may autofill the VAN, expiration date, CVV, address information,first name, and last name into a payment form. The user may thencomplete the grocery purchase using the autofilled payment informationin the merchant application 114.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a logic flow 500. The logic flow 500may be representative of some or all of the operations executed by oneor more embodiments described herein. For example, the logic flow 500may include some or all of the operations to provide anapplication-based point-of-sale system in a mobile operating system.Embodiments are not limited in this context.

As shown, the logic flow 500 begins at block 505, where a user bringsthe contactless card 201 within communications range of the mobiledevice 110 (e.g., using a tap gesture) to cause the contactless card 201to generate and transmit encrypted data (e.g., the encrypted customer ID208). At block 510, the applet 203 of the contactless card 201 generatesthe diversified key 206 by encrypting the counter value 204 and themaster key 205 stored in the memory 202 of the contactless card using acryptographic algorithm. In some embodiments, the applet 203 mayincrement the counter 204 prior to the encryption. At block 515, thecontactless card 201 encrypts data (e.g., the customer identifier 207)using the diversified key 206 and the cryptographic algorithm,generating encrypted data (e.g., the encrypted customer ID 208).

At block 520, the contactless card 201 may transmit the encrypted datato the account application 113 of the mobile device 110, e.g., usingNFC. At block 525, the account application 113 of the mobile device 110may transmit the data received from the contactless card 201 to theauthentication application 223 of the server 220. At block 530, theauthentication application 223 of the server 220 may generate adiversified key 206 using the private key 205 and the counter value 204as input to a cryptographic algorithm. In one embodiment, theauthentication application 223 increments the counter value 204 of theserver 220 to synchronize with the counter value 204 in the memory ofthe contactless card 201.

At block 535, the authentication application 223 decrypts the encryptedcustomer ID 208 received from the contactless card 201 via the mobiledevice 110 using the diversified key 206. Doing so may yield at leastthe customer ID 207. By yielding the customer ID 207, the authenticationapplication 223 may validate the data received from the contactless card201 at block 540. For example, the authentication application 223 maycompare the customer ID 207 to a customer identifier for the associatedaccount in the account data 224, and validate the data based on a match.At block 545, the VAN generator 226 generates a VAN, expiration date,and CVV based on the verification of the encrypted data at block 540.

At block 550, the server 220 may transmit the VAN, expiration date, CVV,and an indication to the account application 113 specifying that theencrypted data was verified. In some embodiments, the indication ofverification is not transmitted. In such embodiments, the transmissionof the VAN, expiration date, and CVV (and/or any other account-relateddata) serves as the indication that the encrypted data was verified. Atblock 555, the account application 113 may initiate the local server115. Doing so allows the local server 115 to serve as a point-of-saleapplication to other applications executing on the mobile device 110,e.g., by providing the VAN and related data to complete purchases in theother applications.

FIG. 6A illustrates a contactless card 201, which may comprise a paymentcard, such as a credit card, debit card, and/or a gift card. As shown,the contactless card 201 may be issued by a service provider 602displayed on the front or back of the card 201. In some examples, thecontactless card 201 is not related to a payment card, and may comprise,without limitation, an identification card. In some examples, thepayment card may comprise a dual interface contactless payment card. Thecontactless card 201 may comprise a substrate 610, which may include asingle layer or one or more laminated layers composed of plastics,metals, and other materials. Exemplary substrate materials includepolyvinyl chloride, polyvinyl chloride acetate, acrylonitrile butadienestyrene, polycarbonate, polyesters, anodized titanium, palladium, gold,carbon, paper, and biodegradable materials. In some examples, thecontactless card 201 may have physical characteristics compliant withthe ID-1 format of the ISO/IEC 7810 standard, and the contactless cardmay otherwise be compliant with the ISO/IEC 14443 standard. However, itis understood that the contactless card 201 according to the presentdisclosure may have different characteristics, and the presentdisclosure does not require a contactless card to be implemented in apayment card.

The contactless card 201 may also include identification information 615displayed on the front and/or back of the card, and a contact pad 620.The contact pad 620 may be configured to establish contact with anothercommunication device, such as the mobile devices 110, a user device,smart phone, laptop, desktop, or tablet computer. The contactless card201 may also include processing circuitry, antenna and other componentsnot shown in FIG. 6A. These components may be located behind the contactpad 620 or elsewhere on the substrate 610. The contactless card 201 mayalso include a magnetic strip or tape, which may be located on the backof the card (not shown in FIG. 6A).

As illustrated in FIG. 6B, the contact pad 620 of contactless card 201may include processing circuitry 625 for storing and processinginformation, including a microprocessor 630 and the memory 202. It isunderstood that the processing circuitry 625 may contain additionalcomponents, including processors, memories, error and parity/CRCcheckers, data encoders, anti-collision algorithms, controllers, commanddecoders, security primitives and tamper proofing hardware, as necessaryto perform the functions described herein.

The memory 202 may be a read-only memory, write-once read-multiplememory or read/write memory, e.g., RAM, ROM, and EEPROM, and thecontactless card 201 may include one or more of these memories. Aread-only memory may be factory programmable as read-only or one-timeprogrammable. One-time programmability provides the opportunity to writeonce then read many times. A write once/read-multiple memory may beprogrammed at a point in time after the memory chip has left thefactory. Once the memory is programmed, it may not be rewritten, but itmay be read many times. A read/write memory may be programmed andre-programed many times after leaving the factory. A read/write memorymay also be read many times after leaving the factory.

The memory 202 may be configured to store one or more applets 203, thecounter value 204, private key 205, the diversified key 206, and one ormore customer IDs 207. The one or more applets 203 may comprise one ormore software applications configured to execute on one or morecontactless cards, such as a Java® Card applet. However, it isunderstood that applets 203 are not limited to Java Card applets, andinstead may be any software application operable on contactless cards orother devices having limited memory. The customer ID 207 may comprise aunique alphanumeric identifier assigned to a user of the contactlesscard 201, and the identifier may distinguish the user of the contactlesscard from other contactless card users. In some examples, the customerID 207 may identify both a customer and an account assigned to thatcustomer and may further identify the contactless card associated withthe customer's account. In some embodiments, the applet 203 may use thecustomer ID 207 as input to a cryptographic algorithm with the keys 205and/or 206 to encrypt the customer ID 207. Similarly, the applet 203 mayconstruct a URL that includes the encrypted customer ID 207 as aparameter.

The processor and memory elements of the foregoing exemplary embodimentsare described with reference to the contact pad, but the presentdisclosure is not limited thereto. It is understood that these elementsmay be implemented outside of the pad 620 or entirely separate from it,or as further elements in addition to processor 630 and memory 202elements located within the contact pad 620.

In some examples, the contactless card 201 may comprise one or moreantennas 655. The one or more antennas 655 may be placed within thecontactless card 201 and around the processing circuitry 625 of thecontact pad 620. For example, the one or more antennas 655 may beintegral with the processing circuitry 625 and the one or more antennas655 may be used with an external booster coil. As another example, theone or more antennas 655 may be external to the contact pad 620 and theprocessing circuitry 625.

In an embodiment, the coil of contactless card 201 may act as thesecondary of an air core transformer. The terminal may communicate withthe contactless card 201 by cutting power or amplitude modulation. Thecontactless card 201 may infer the data transmitted from the terminalusing the gaps in the contactless card's power connection, which may befunctionally maintained through one or more capacitors. The contactlesscard 201 may communicate back by switching a load on the contactlesscard's coil or load modulation. Load modulation may be detected in theterminal's coil through interference. More generally, using the antennas655, processing circuitry 625, and/or the memory 202, the contactlesscard 201 provides a communications interface to communicate via NFC,Bluetooth, and/or Wi-Fi communications.

As explained above, contactless cards 201 may be built on a softwareplatform operable on smart cards or other devices having limited memory,such as JavaCard, and one or more or more applications or applets may besecurely executed. Applets may be added to contactless cards to providea one-time password (OTP) for multifactor authentication (MFA) invarious mobile application-based use cases. Applets may be configured torespond to one or more requests, such as near field data exchangerequests, from a reader, such as a mobile NFC reader (e.g., thecommunications interface 218 of the device 110), and produce an NDEFmessage that comprises a cryptographically secure OTP (e.g., anencrypted customer ID) encoded as an NDEF text tag.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing architecture700 comprising a computing system 702 that may be suitable forimplementing various embodiments as previously described. In variousembodiments, the computing architecture 700 may comprise or beimplemented as part of an electronic device. In some embodiments, thecomputing architecture 700 may be representative, for example, of asystem that implements one or more components of the systems 100 and/or200. In some embodiments, computing system 702 may be representative,for example, of the contactless card 201, mobile devices 110, andauthentication server 220. The embodiments are not limited in thiscontext. More generally, the computing architecture 700 is configured toimplement all logic, applications, systems, methods, apparatuses, andfunctionality described herein with reference to FIGS. 1-6B.

As used in this application, the terms “system” and “component” and“module” are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, eitherhardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or softwarein execution, examples of which are provided by the exemplary computingarchitecture 700. For example, a component can be, but is not limited tobeing, a process running on a computer processor, a computer processor,a hard disk drive, multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magneticstorage medium), an object, an executable, a thread of execution, aprogram, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an applicationrunning on a server and the server can be a component. One or morecomponents can reside within a process and/or thread of execution, and acomponent can be localized on one computer and/or distributed betweentwo or more computers. Further, components may be communicativelycoupled to each other by various types of communications media tocoordinate operations. The coordination may involve the uni-directionalor bi-directional exchange of information. For instance, the componentsmay communicate information in the form of signals communicated over thecommunications media. The information can be implemented as signalsallocated to various signal lines. In such allocations, each message isa signal. Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ datamessages. Such data messages may be sent across various connections.Exemplary connections include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces,and bus interfaces.

The computing system 702 includes various common computing elements,such as one or more processors, multi-core processors, co-processors,memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals, interfaces,oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards, multimediainput/output (I/O) components, power supplies, and so forth. Theembodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by the computingsystem 702.

As shown in FIG. 7, the computing system 702 comprises a processor 704,a system memory 706 and a system bus 708. The processor 704 can be anyof various commercially available computer processors, including withoutlimitation an AMD® Athlon®, Duron® and Opteron® processors; ARM®application, embedded and secure processors; IBM® and Motorola®DragonBall® and PowerPC® processors; IBM and Sony® Cell processors;Intel® Celeron®, Core®, Core (2) Duo®, Itanium®, Pentium®, Xeon®, andXScale® processors; and similar processors. Dual microprocessors,multi-core processors, and other multi-processor architectures may alsobe employed as the processor 704.

The system bus 708 provides an interface for system componentsincluding, but not limited to, the system memory 706 to the processor704. The system bus 708 can be any of several types of bus structurethat may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or without a memorycontroller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety ofcommercially available bus architectures. Interface adapters may connectto the system bus 708 via a slot architecture. Example slotarchitectures may include without limitation Accelerated Graphics Port(AGP), Card Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA),Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer MemoryCard International Association (PCMCIA), and the like.

The system memory 706 may include various types of computer-readablestorage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM(DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), staticRAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory (e.g., oneor more flash arrays), polymer memory such as ferroelectric polymermemory, ovonic memory, phase change or ferroelectric memory,silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) memory, magnetic or opticalcards, an array of devices such as Redundant Array of Independent Disks(RAID) drives, solid state memory devices (e.g., USB memory, solid statedrives (SSD) and any other type of storage media suitable for storinginformation. In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 7, the systemmemory 706 can include non-volatile memory 710 and/or volatile memory712. A basic input/output system (BIOS) can be stored in thenon-volatile memory 710.

The computing system 702 may include various types of computer-readablestorage media in the form of one or more lower speed memory units,including an internal (or external) hard disk drive (HDD) 714, amagnetic floppy disk drive (FDD) 716 to read from or write to aremovable magnetic disk 718, and an optical disk drive 720 to read fromor write to a removable optical disk 722 (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD). TheHDD 714, FDD 716 and optical disk drive 720 can be connected to thesystem bus 708 by an HDD interface 724, an FDD interface 726 and anoptical drive interface 728, respectively. The HDD interface 724 forexternal drive implementations can include at least one or both ofUniversal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 interface technologies. Thecomputing system 702 is generally is configured to implement all logic,systems, methods, apparatuses, and functionality described herein withreference to FIGS. 1-6B.

The drives and associated computer-readable media provide volatileand/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-readableinstructions, computer-executable instructions, and so forth. Forexample, a number of program modules can be stored in the drives andmemory units 710, 712, including an operating system 730, one or moreapplication programs 732, other program modules 734, and program data736. In one embodiment, the one or more application programs 732, otherprogram modules 734, and program data 736 can include, for example, thevarious applications and/or components of the systems 100, 200, e.g.,the applet 203, counter 204, private key 205, diversified key 206,customer ID 207, operating system 112, account application 113, otherapplications 114, the authentication application 223, the account data224, and/or the encrypted customer ID 208.

A user can enter commands and information into the computing system 702through one or more wire/wireless input devices, for example, a keyboard738 and a pointing device, such as a mouse 740. Other input devices mayinclude microphones, infra-red (IR) remote controls, radio-frequency(RF) remote controls, game pads, stylus pens, card readers, dongles,finger print readers, gloves, graphics tablets, joysticks, keyboards,retina readers, touch screens (e.g., capacitive, resistive, etc.),trackballs, trackpads, sensors, styluses, and the like. These and otherinput devices are often connected to the processor 704 through an inputdevice interface 742 that is coupled to the system bus 708, but can beconnected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE 1394 serialport, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so forth.

A monitor 744 or other type of display device is also connected to thesystem bus 708 via an interface, such as a video adaptor 746. Themonitor 744 may be internal or external to the computing system 702. Inaddition to the monitor 744, a computer typically includes otherperipheral output devices, such as speakers, printers, and so forth.

The computing system 702 may operate in a networked environment usinglogical connections via wire and/or wireless communications to one ormore remote computers, such as a remote computer 748. The remotecomputer 748 can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, apersonal computer, portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainmentappliance, a peer device or other common network node, and typicallyincludes many or all of the elements described relative to the computingsystem 702, although, for purposes of brevity, only a memory/storagedevice 750 is illustrated. The logical connections depicted includewire/wireless connectivity to a local area network (LAN) 752 and/orlarger networks, for example, a wide area network (WAN) 754. Such LANand WAN networking environments are commonplace in offices andcompanies, and facilitate enterprise-wide computer networks, such asintranets, all of which may connect to a global communications network,for example, the Internet. In embodiments, the network 230 of FIG. 2 isone or more of the LAN 752 and the WAN 754.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computing system 702 isconnected to the LAN 752 through a wire and/or wireless communicationnetwork interface or adaptor 756. The adaptor 756 can facilitate wireand/or wireless communications to the LAN 752, which may also include awireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with thewireless functionality of the adaptor 756.

When used in a WAN networking environment, the computing system 702 caninclude a modem 758, or is connected to a communications server on theWAN 754, or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN754, such as by way of the Internet. The modem 758, which can beinternal or external and a wire and/or wireless device, connects to thesystem bus 708 via the input device interface 742. In a networkedenvironment, program modules depicted relative to the computing system702, or portions thereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storagedevice 750. It will be appreciated that the network connections shownare exemplary and other means of establishing a communications linkbetween the computers can be used.

The computing system 702 is operable to communicate with wired andwireless devices or entities using the IEEE 802 family of standards,such as wireless devices operatively disposed in wireless communication(e.g., IEEE 802.16 over-the-air modulation techniques). This includes atleast Wi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity), WiMax, and Bluetooth™ wirelesstechnologies, among others. Thus, the communication can be a predefinedstructure as with a conventional network or simply an ad hoccommunication between at least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radiotechnologies called IEEE 802.11x (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure,reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used toconnect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks(which use IEEE 802.3-related media and functions).

Various embodiments may be implemented using hardware elements, softwareelements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements mayinclude processors, microprocessors, circuits, circuit elements (e.g.,transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integratedcircuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmablelogic devices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP), field programmablegate array (FPGA), logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips,microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software may includesoftware components, programs, applications, computer programs,application programs, system programs, machine programs, operatingsystem software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines,subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces,application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code,computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values,symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodimentis implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may varyin accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computationalrate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input datarates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and otherdesign or performance constraints.

One or more aspects of at least one embodiment may be implemented byrepresentative instructions stored on a machine-readable medium whichrepresents various logic within the processor, which when read by amachine causes the machine to fabricate logic to perform the techniquesdescribed herein. Such representations, known as “IP cores” may bestored on a tangible, machine readable medium and supplied to variouscustomers or manufacturing facilities to load into the fabricationmachines that make the logic or processor. Some embodiments may beimplemented, for example, using a machine-readable medium or articlewhich may store an instruction or a set of instructions that, ifexecuted by a machine, may cause the machine to perform a method and/oroperations in accordance with the embodiments. Such a machine mayinclude, for example, any suitable processing platform, computingplatform, computing device, processing device, computing system,processing system, computer, processor, or the like, and may beimplemented using any suitable combination of hardware and/or software.The machine-readable medium or article may include, for example, anysuitable type of memory unit, memory device, memory article, memorymedium, storage device, storage article, storage medium and/or storageunit, for example, memory, removable or non-removable media, erasable ornon-erasable media, writeable or re-writeable media, digital or analogmedia, hard disk, floppy disk, Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM),Compact Disk Recordable (CD-R), Compact Disk Rewriteable (CD-RW),optical disk, magnetic media, magneto-optical media, removable memorycards or disks, various types of Digital Versatile Disk (DVD), a tape, acassette, or the like. The instructions may include any suitable type ofcode, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executablecode, static code, dynamic code, encrypted code, and the like,implemented using any suitable high-level, low-level, object-oriented,visual, compiled and/or interpreted programming language.

The foregoing description of example embodiments has been presented forthe purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the present disclosure to the precise formsdisclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light ofthis disclosure. It is intended that the scope of the present disclosurebe limited not by this detailed description, but rather by the claimsappended hereto. Future filed applications claiming priority to thisapplication may claim the disclosed subject matter in a differentmanner, and may generally include any set of one or more limitations asvariously disclosed or otherwise demonstrated herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: generating, by a firstapplication executing on a processor, a first URL directed to a secondapplication, wherein a parameter of the first URL comprises anidentifier of the first application; accessing, by a mobile operatingsystem (OS) executing on the processor, the second application based onthe first URL; receiving, by the second application from a server, dataassociated with an account; initiating, by the second application, atransmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) server on aport; generating, by the second application, a second URL directed tothe first application, wherein a parameter of the second URL comprisesthe port; accessing, by the OS, the first application based on thesecond URL; receiving, by the first application, the data via aconnection with the TCP/IP server using the port specified in the secondURL; and autofilling, by the first application, the data to a form fieldin the first application.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:establishing, by the first application, the connection with the TCP/IPserver using the port specified in the second URL.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the data comprises one or more of an account numberassociated with the account, an expiration date of the account number, acard verification value (CVV) of the account number, or a billingaddress of the account.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprisingprior to the second application receiving the data: receive, by thesecond application, encrypted data from a contactless card; transmit, bythe second application, the encrypted data to the server; and receive,by the second application, an indication from the server specifying theserver decrypted the encrypted data, wherein the second applicationreceives the data based at least in part on the received indication fromthe server.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: selecting, bythe second application, a port number from a plurality of port numbersas the port.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, bythe TCP/IP server, a request to establish the connection from the firstapplication, wherein the request comprises a certificate of the firstapplication; validating, by the second application, the certificate ofthe first application; and determining, by the second application, toestablish the connection based on identifying the identifier of thefirst application in the request and the validation of the certificateof the first application, wherein the TCP/IP server is accessible onlyto applications executing on the processor.
 7. The method of claim 1,further comprising: validating, by the first application using anapplication programming interface (API) of the OS, at least a portion ofthe first URL; and validating, by the second application using the APIof the OS, at least a portion of the second URL.
 8. A computingapparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructionsthat, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: generate,by a first application executing on the processor, a first URL directedto a second application, wherein a parameter of the first URL comprisesan identifier of the first application; access, by a mobile operatingsystem (OS) executing on the processor, the second application based onthe first URL; receive, by the second application from a server, dataassociated with an account; initiate, by the second application, atransmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) server on aport; generate, by the second application, a second URL directed to thefirst application, wherein a parameter of the second URL comprises theport; access, by the OS, the first application based on the second URL;receive, by the first application, the data via a connection with theTCP/IP server using the port specified in the second URL; and autofill,by the first application, the data to a form field in the firstapplication.
 9. The computing apparatus of claim 8, wherein theinstructions further cause the processor to: establish, by the firstapplication, the connection with the TCP/IP server using the portspecified in the second URL.
 10. The computing apparatus of claim 8,wherein the data comprises one or more of an account number associatedwith the account, an expiration date of the account number, a cardverification value (CVV) of the account number, or a billing address ofthe account.
 11. The computing apparatus of claim 8, wherein theinstructions further cause the processor to prior to the secondapplication receive the data: receive, by the second application,encrypted data from a contactless card; transmit, by the secondapplication, the encrypted data to the server; and receive, by thesecond application, an indication from the server specify the serverdecrypted the encrypted data, wherein the second application receivesthe data based at least in part on the received indication from theserver.
 12. The computing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructionsfurther cause the processor to: select, by the second application, aport number from a plurality of port numbers as the port.
 13. Thecomputing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructions further causethe processor to: receive, by the TCP/IP server, a request to establishthe connection from the first application, wherein the request comprisesa certificate of the first application; validate, by the secondapplication, the certificate of the first application; and determine, bythe second application, to establish the connection based on identifyingthe identifier of the first application in the request and thevalidation of the certificate of the first application, wherein theTCP/IP server is accessible only to applications executing on theprocessor.
 14. The computing apparatus of claim 8, wherein theinstructions further cause the processor to: validate, by the firstapplication using an application programming interface (API) of the OS,at least a portion of the first URL; and validate, by the secondapplication using the API of the OS, at least a portion of the secondURL.
 15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, thecomputer-readable storage medium including instructions that whenexecuted by a processor, cause the processor to: generate, by a firstapplication executing on the processor, a first URL directed to a secondapplication, wherein a parameter of the first URL comprises anidentifier of the first application; access, by a mobile operatingsystem (OS) executing on the processor, the second application based onthe first URL; receive, by the second application from a server, dataassociated with an account; initiate, by the second application, atransmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) server on aport; generate, by the second application, a second URL directed to thefirst application, wherein a parameter of the second URL comprises theport; access, by the OS, the first application based on the second URL;receive, by the first application, the data via a connection with theTCP/IP server using the port specified in the second URL; and autofill,by the first application, the data to a form field in the firstapplication.
 16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15,wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: establish, bythe first application, the connection with the TCP/IP server using theport specified in the second URL.
 17. The computer-readable storagemedium of claim 15, wherein the data comprises one or more of an accountnumber associated with the account, an expiration date of the accountnumber, a card verification value (CVV) of the account number, or abilling address of the account.
 18. The computer-readable storage mediumof claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the processor toprior to the second application receive the data: receive, by the secondapplication, encrypted data from a contactless card; transmit, by thesecond application, the encrypted data to the server; and receive, bythe second application, an indication from the server specify the serverdecrypted the encrypted data, wherein the second application receivesthe data based at least in part on the received indication from theserver.
 19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, whereinthe instructions further cause the processor to: select, by the secondapplication, a port number from a plurality of port numbers as the port.20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein theinstructions further cause the processor to: receive, by the TCP/IPserver, a request to establish the connection from the firstapplication, wherein the request comprises a certificate of the firstapplication; validate, by the second application, the certificate of thefirst application; and determine, by the second application, toestablish the connection based on identifying the identifier of thefirst application in the request and the validation of the certificateof the first application, wherein the TCP/IP server is accessible onlyto applications executing on the processor.